‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

Re:‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood dea... by hnbad on Friday September 15, 2023 @09:35AM (#37522711)

Notably a large number of bridges of the German autobahn was recently found to be dangerously unmaintained to the point where the only recommended recourse was to tear them down and rebuild them. Luckily Germany doesn't normally see significant earthquakes and the storms apparently haven't been severe enough to destroy any of them.

In my part of Germany we had a severe rain storm this week that caused local flooding in part because the sewage treatment plant could not process the intake quickly enough, resulting in the sewers getting backlogged while rain was still pouring down.

Even without outright neglect a lot of infrastructure simply can't handle situations significantly outside the standard range of operation.

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Re:‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood dea... by Jensson on Friday September 15, 2023 @01:53PM (#37526754)

> Luckily Germany doesn't normally see significant earthquakes and the storms apparently haven't been severe enough to destroy any of them.

It isn't luck, if Germany had earthquakes they would have built the bridges differently. You don't build things to handle situations that doesn't happen.

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Re:‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood dea... by hnbad on Monday September 18, 2023 @09:14AM (#37555653)

Well, yes, but the lucky part is that unlike severe weather events, the frequency and severity of earthquakes isn't likely to significantly change in Germany.

Our forests died because the trees we planted can't cope with the kind of heat waves we're now seeing. Our towns get flooded because our infrastructure wasn't build to handle this much downpour. But luckily earthquakes aren't something we have to worry about as much, climate change or not.

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